Saturday, June 26, 2010

There is something about making a fondant cake with a character theme. I find it so much more fun than a proper "adult fondant cake". There is so much possibilities where characters in play are concerned. I had recently added another fondant cake book for children's party to my collection of ever growing library. This character cake comes from Debbie Brown's "50 Easy Party Cakes". I find that she is particularly good with such fondant cakes and her instructions are easy to follow. This particular design took me about 5 hours to complete, excluding baking the actual cake. The only gripe that I have with working with fondant (in Singapore climate) is that I have to have the air-conditioner on the entire day. But I had a blast with this anyway. I took it to office the next day and my colleagues were reserving the piggy fondant figurines to take home for their little girls.

1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottoms and sides of three 8-inch round cake pans or coat with vegetable cooking spray. Line the bottom of each pan with a round of parchment or waxed paper and grease the paper.

2) In a medium bowl, combine the hot espresso and cocoa powder, stirring to dissolve the cocoa. Let this mocha mixture stand until cooled to body temperature. Meanwhile, in another bowl, beat the eggs lightly. Whisk in the buttermilk and vanilla until well mixed.

3) Place the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. With the mixer on low, evenly blend the dry ingredients. Add the butter and the mocha mixture, beating until well blended. Raise the mixer speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, then add the buttermilk-egg mixture in 3 additions, scraping well and blending only to incorporate. Divide the batter among the 3 prepared pans.

4) Bake the cake layers for 35 to 38 minutes, or until a cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out almost clean but still moist. Let cool in the pans for about 10 minutes, then invert onto wire racks. Carefully peel off the paper liners and let the layers cool completely.

5) To assemble the cake, place one layer, flat side up, on a cake stand or serving plate. Pour 1/2 cup of the Espresso Drizzle onto the center of the layer and spread all the way to the edge, allowing it to drip slightly over the sides. Repeat with the second layer. Set the third layer in place, then pour the remaining drizzle on top and spread to the edges, making sure the glaze drips down the sides, covering all the edges.

Baker's NoteDutch process cocoa produces a very attractive dark cake here. However, if all you have is regular cocoa, it will taste fine but look redder and lighter in color.

Because this is such a moist cake, you'll notice the baking time is slightly longer than usual.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

We do have a soft spot for Indian food. Every once in a while when the craving sinks in, we would just go around the corner to where we live and indulge in either banana leave rice or thosai. Although I love Indian food I very seldom cook it as most of the recipes I have seen are pretty intimidating. It calls for a lot of fresh spices which have to be grinded. The fact that I do not have a spice grinder would also be another deterrent. I have toyed with the idea of buying one but have asked myself to hold off as I would most likely be using it on very rare occassions only.

I guess for recipes such as this particular one, the easiest would be to buy ready bottled spices. It's so convenient and handy, half your work is already done for you. Also it's not as if I have problems finding bottled briyani paste in this part of the world. Entirely the opposite! If I was to go to an Indian supermarket (take Mustaff for instance) I would probably find more than a dozen types of bottled briyani paste.

1) Heat the ghee up in a big pot. Then add the briyani paste and chilli powder and fry until fragrant.

2) Add in the onion and fry for about 2 minutes. Add in the grated ginger and garlic.

3) Then add in the chicken pieces to the paste and stir fry for about 4 minutes. Throw in the tomatoes and stir fry for another 1 minute.

4) Add the water and cover the lid to let it boil. Once it begins to boil, add in the chillies, yoghurt, coriander and mint leaves. Turn the heat to a simmer and let it cook until chicken becomes tender.

5) Add salt to taste. (To thicken the sauce, you can add another 2 – 3 tablespoons of yoghurt towards the end of your cooking. Let the sauce simmer for another 5 minutes if you are adding this.)

6) Garnish with additional coriander and mint leaves just before serving.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

I was eagerly anticipating how this month's cake would turn out because it uses blueberries. That I have plenty of .. frozen ones .. in my freezer. What a great way to get rid of some of my cache from last summer! And guess what, summer is here again! Singapore really does not have summer or the four seasons for that fact. Hmmm ... come to think of it, we actually do have four season; hot and hotter, wet and wetter. I'm not joking.

Speaking of wet, we have a really bad thunderstorm on Wednesday morning. We had about 100mm of rainfall in less than 3 hours. The main shopping belt, Orchard Road, was flooded. Of my 20 years staying in Singapore I have never heard of Orchard Road being flooded .. never! I was totally glued to thephotos which were being posted in cyberspace. I watched over prime time news that evening and it reported that shops which operated in the basement of these affected buildings had a lot of their goods damaged and they are anticipating quite a set back in their busines. Vehicles which were stranded in the floods and stalled along Orchard Road, would have to have their entire engine overhauled and dried out. How lucky I was not to be working in that part of town!

I remembered last year in November we experienced similar floods. Some of the buildings' basement carparks in a residential district was entirely flooded. Cars that were parked there were totally submerged and I meant underwater. There was a relatively new Ferari parked in one of these buildings and I think the driver would have to pay at least $$300,000 or maybe more just to repair his vehicle. That's provided his Ferari could still run.

Before I ramble further, this particular blueberry cake may look simple but it was oh so delicious. It's extremely, extremely moist and light. Not as light as a sponge cake but not that far of in my books. I had at first thought of halfing the recipe but am glad that I did not. The batter was extremely thick and as I was using a handmixer, the blades were kind of groaning a bit. I had so anticipated a heavy and dry cake but on the contrary it was not. This is one recipe, in my books, is for keeps!

1) Heat the oven to 375F and generously grease a 9 inch square or round pan.

2) Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl and stir with a fork to mix well. In a medium bowl, combine the butter and sugar and beat with a mixer at high speed until well combined. Add the egg and beat well for 1 to 2 minutes, stopping to scrape down the bowl until the mixture is smooth and light.

3) Stir in half the flour mixture then half the milk, mixing just enough to keep the batter fairly smooth and well combined. Add the remaining flour, then the rest of the milk, mixing gently. Stir in the blueberries. (Note that the batter is extremely thick and you will likely have to scrape the top so as to level out the cake batter)

4) Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 375F for 30 minutes or until the cake is golden, springs back when touched gently in the centre and is pulling away from the sides of the pan.

5) Serve a square of cake right from the pan, warm or at room temperature. If its round, let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack or folded kitchen towel for 10 minutes and then turn it out to cool, top side up.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Ever since I first learnt how to make pizza, we have completely stopped ordering home deliveries and only on very rare occassions had it outside in restaurants. It's amazing that once you sort of "master" a dish, anything that's not home made somehow does not come up to expectations. That's how I feel (surprisingly as well as my other half), what about you guys?

A couple of months back we decided to explore some food warehouse sellers at Woodlands Terrace (this is in Singapore). In particular we wanted to check out Fassler Gourmet and Melvados . If you happen to stay in Singapore and have not gone yet, I encourage you to do so. Do visit Melvados on the last Saturday of each month as they usually have food-tasting day (but check their website first in case the dates have been changed).

We actually expected the premises to be bigger but on the contrary it was the opposite. All the items being sold at Fassler was cramped into a extremely, extremely coldroom. The coldroom was small as well and there were quite a few shoppers inside. But the range of frozen food stuff they had was mind boggling. Check out their website which has the price listing as well. We ended up buying close to $100 worth of food comprising of pre-packed soups (their smoked salmon chowder is so, so good), mixed frozen seafood, different types of smoked salmon, salmon fish patties, fried salmon fish skin as well as frozen red snapper fillets. By the way, they even have fresh salmon sashimi as well.

At Melvados, we went berzerk again cause it was food-tasting Saturday. There was at least 5 different types of brownies, 4 types of cake (including durian cake .. yummy), pasta and pesto sauces, 3 types of bread, lasagna and at least 12 different flavours of ice-cream and yoghurts. Another $100 went out of the wallet at Melvados. We had to rearrange my entire fridge/freezer to store everything away. But it was a whole lot of fun.

Anyway back to this recipe posting. As you can see, it's smoked salmon and yes, it's from Fassler.

2) Turn to Speed 2 and mix for 1 minute. Continue on speed 2, add remaining flour, a bit at a time and mix for another 2 minutes, or until dough clings to hook and cleans sides of bowl.

3) Knead on speed 2 for 2 more minutes. Place dough in greased bowl, turn the ball of dough around to ensure that you grease the entire ball. Cover bowl with cling-wrap. Let rise in warm place, free from draft, about 1 hour or until double in bulk.

4) Preheat oven to 220C. Punch down dough to release the gas. Brush 2 pizza pans with oil and sprinkle with cornmeal. Split dough into 2 balls. Roll, stretch, or toss the dough until thin and place on the pans.

5) Then smear on your favourite pizsa or tomato sauce thinly and evenly. Spread toppings and chesses and bake for about 15 - 18 minutes until golden brown. Remove pizzas from oven and allow it to sit for about 1 - 2 minutes before cutting them to serve.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Our hostesses this month, Evelyne of Cheap Ethnic Eatz and Valerie of The Chocolate Bunny , chose delicious pate with freshly baked bread as their June Daring Cook’s challenge! They’ve provided us with 4 different pâté recipes to choose from and are allowing us to go wild with our homemade bread choice.

Coming up with a pâté from scratch is practically unheard of in my repetiore of baking and cooking. In fact I can definitely count with one hand the number of times I've ever eaten pâté. And even then, it would be canned pâté usually from the local supermarket shelf. So if it was not for me participating in Daring Cooks, you will never ever find pâté being posted in this blog.

Now what is pâté? In Wikipedia, it says that pâté is a mixture of ground meat and fat minced into a spreadable paste. Common additions include vegetables, herbs, spices, and wine. Pâté made of meat can be cooked in a variety of ways such as baked in a crust and this is called pâté en croûte or it can be also be baked in a terrine (or other mold), in which case it is known as pâté en terrine. Vegetarian pâtés based on tofu, mushrooms, nuts or various beans are also available. These pâtés do not require cooking and are easily made with a food processor. In Vietnam, pâté is commonly used on banh mi baguette type sandwiches.

For this month's challenge, I decided to make a pâté made of chicken which would be wrapped in proscuitto. I accompanied this with a dark German rye bread rather than the usual french baguette.

3) Transfer mixture to a large bowl and stir in apricots and pecan halves.

4) Line an 8 ½-x-4 ½-inch loaf pan with parchment paper. Line bottom and sides of parchment paper with prosciutto ham, so that ham hangs of the sides of the pan.

5) Spoon and spread half of the chicken filling into pan. Then spread a thin layer of sausage meat on top of the chicken. Randomly place the fresh bay leaves on top of the sausage meat. Then spoon the remain chicken filing on top. Fold prosciutto over to cover completely, adding extra prosciutto if necessary.

6) Place a piece of parchment over top of pan and cover with foil. Bake on a baking tray for about 50 minutes, until an internal temperature of 165°F is reached. Cool terrine, then chill completely before turning out and slicing.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

One of the cheapest citrus fruit we can get our hands on in this part of the world other than oranges, would be lemons. There is something about lemons that makes the best addition to baking and cooking. It is so versatile and whoever first added it to desserts must have been a genius.

I'm not sure how I ended up with half a dozen lemons. And I probably kept putting off using them or forgetting what I had wanted them for in the first instance. Anyway rather than watching them go bad in the fridge, I decided to make some lemon curd. If you have never made lemon curd before, you would never believe how easy it is to whip up some. Imagine a bottle of this stuff sells just under SGD7.00 in Singapore. Wow, that could buy me a whole lot of lemons and churn up a few cups of lemon curd as well.

So there I was one evening, with a batch of lemon curd sitting in the fridge and thinking of what I could pair it with. I've done lemon shortbread before as well as adding the curd to a frosting for a lemon cake. How about keeping it simple and adding the curd to an empty baked Tart Shell . Now that would make it a lemon curd tart wouldn't it?

1) In a stainless steel bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water, whisk together the eggs, sugar, and lemon juice until blended.

2) Stir constantly (to prevent it from curdling), until the mixture becomes thick (it should resemble sour cream or hollandaise sauce). This will take approximately 10 minutes.

3) Remove from heat and immediately pour through a fine strainer to remove any lumps.

4) Cut the butter into small pieces and whisk into the mixture until the butter has melted. Add the lemon zest and let cool. The lemon curd will continue to thicken as it cools.

5) Use a clingwrap film to press against the top of the curd to prevent it from forming a skin. Cool and refrigerate. This can keep for about 2 weeks.

* If you want a lighter lemon curd whip 1/2 cup (120 ml) of heavy whipping cream and fold into the lemon curd.

** Room temperature lemons provide more juice. After squeezing, strain the juice to remove any pulp. Zest is the yellow, sweet-flavored outer rind of the lemon. A zester or fine grater can be used to remove the rind. Cold lemons are much easier to grate. Grate lemons just before using as the zest will lose moisture if it sits too long.

1) Grease a full size jelly pan and line with parchment paper. Preheat your oven to 200C.

2) Sift together cake flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda into a clean bowl and set aside.

3) In another bowl, whisk by hand the egg yolks, 50g sugar, oil and water until the mixture is light in colour and slightly thicken. This should take about 1 minute.

4) Add the flour mixture to the egg and whisk until smooth. Set aside.

5) In a clean bowl whip the egg whites until slightly frothy. Then add in the cream of tartar and continue to whip for about 1 minute. Then add the remaining 70g sugar and continue to whip until stiff peaks.

6) Fold 1/3 of the egg meringue into the yolk mixture. Fold gently until mixed well. Then add in the remaining 2/3 meringue and continue to fold gently using either a whisk or spatula. Fold only until the white streaks have disappeared. Do not overfold or you may deflate the batter.

7) Pour into the lined jelly pan and smoothen the top to ensure an even surface. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Check at 10 minutes baking time - do not over bake or your roll will become hard.

8) Remove from oven and let cool for about 15 minutes before removing parchment paper. The roll should be completely cool before adding the whipped cream.

To Assemble:

1) Trim off the sides of the roll to have clean lines. Place the roll on top of a clean sheet of parchment paper. Place one side of the long end of the roll at the edge of the parchment. This will allow you to roll the jelly roll easily.

2) Spread the roll with some chocolate ganache. Leave a border around the edge. Then spread some whipped cream on top of the ganache. Sprinkle canned sweet cherries randomly on top of the cream.

3) Using the end of the parchment paper, start to roll away from you. Keep the roll tight as you continue to roll. Once you have finished use the parchment to wrap the entire jelly roll and place it into the refrigerator to set for about 3 hours.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

I was browsing through Tastespotting one evening when I came across this recipe posted by Anh of A Food Lover's Journey . Anh recently did a posting on inspirational things that was green in colour and this bread recipe was included. I immediately zoomed in on the colour, which was so eye catching, so intensely green and it had one of my favourite flavours as well - pandan.

I decided that I would try it out over the weekend. To make the loaf stand out even more, I used green and pink as the alternating colour to each quarter. (I think my niece would love this!) The colours came out extremely well ... in fact you could probably have spotted this loaf of bread from the neighbour's apartment block. I was anticipating that the loaf would turn out soft, like some milk buns I've eaten before. Unfortunately it was not the case. It was good whilst the bread was warm from the oven but after it had cooled down, I found it to be somewhat heavy. I also think that the pandan flavour would have fared better if it had been mixed with coconut instead of milk. I always say, "you never know until you try it out".

1) Mix together all the ingredients (except for the pandan paste) in a bowl. Mix with a wooden spoon until combined.

2) Divide the dough into two portions. Add the pandan paste into one portion, knead well floured surface until the dough is elastic and the color distribute evenly (around 10 mins). Use more flour if the dough is too sticky, but try not to add too much. For the other portion of dough, add the rose water and colouring, and knead until elastic. (I used my KitchenAid to do the kneading for each portion and this took about 6 - 8 mins)

3) Put the dough in two separated bowl. Cover and let it ferment until doubled in size.

4) Divide each dough into 4 portions each (or more depending on the size of your loaf pan). Cover and rest for 10 mins.

Translation:

About Me

Born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Currently residing in Singapore

I love baking and experimenting with new recipes. I hope you enjoy your stay here and do leave me your comments! And if you do try out any of the recipes, I would love to receive your feedback.
Kindly note that all photographs from this blog should not be published without prior permission from the author.